Monday, January 25th, 2010

Islamaphobes have yet again opted to resort to scare tactics imply that unless this country [South Africa] secures a military arrangement with Uncle Sam, it will be rocked by al-Qaeda laced bombs.

Mandela holding the World Cup

Back in 2007, on behalf of unnamed terrorists, J Peter Pham uttered terrorist threats against the 2010 World Cup:

Between the ideologically-motivated ignorance of the country’s rulers to the dangers posed by transnational Islamist terrorism as well as the attractiveness of South Africa’s highly-developed infrastructure to terrorist networks seeking a base for and/or a theater of operations, terrorists understandably find in South Africa an enabling environment at the very least. South Africans should not count on their leaders’ long-standing ties to terrorists groups and regimes to immunize them from the danger that confronts civilization in the twenty-first century. To cite just one example, in a little over two years, in 2010, South Africa will be the first African nation to ever play host to the World Cup Finals, the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world and a target terrorists may find too tempting to pass up. Should anything happen during the tournament, the consequent drying up of tourism and foreign investment would be devastating not just to South Africa, but to the entire African continent. While AFRICOM may not be welcome in South Africa, if the new structure is to “enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa,” it will have to closely monitor – even if from a discreet distance – the foolish playing with fire by the political leaders of that pivotal state before the flames sweep across its entire area of responsibility.

His message is that AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, is the only safe protection. In fact the command is probably a more certain provocation than a safe protection. South Africa’s leadership has changed since 2007. I don’t know what Pham thinks of the new leadership, but South Africa no more inclined to welcome AFRICOM than it was before.

Soccer’s premier international event has ensured that South Africa is in international news media’s constant spotlight. …

…
… this country has to-date resisted pressure to allow the establishment of a US military base within its borders. The Americans are committed to have such presence within Africa and despite cordial relations between the Obama administration and the Zuma presidency they have been frustrated by South Africa’s lack of co-operation.

Its called Africom. And notwithstanding assurances by senior Pentagon officials that its role is limited to protecting US interests that inter-alia include security in the continent, it is not all that kosher.

The current media hype sparked by alarmist reports wherein Islamaphobes have yet again opted to resort to scare tactics imply that unless this country secures a military arrangement with Uncle Sam, it will be rocked by al-Qaeda laced bombs.

Paradoxically, it ignores diametrically opposed arguments that would seek to reassure this country that because it is not in America’s military embrace there cannot be any justification for bombing the soccer festival to smithereens.

And by the way has anyone given thought to the fact that an arsenal known as “dirty-tricks” is a potent asset possessed by agencies such as the CIA, MI5 and Mossad. This allows them to manipulate public opinion through the commission of horrible acts of terror that frames individuals and groups. Ultimately the end result would be to direct policies of sovereign states to the extent that such sovereignty stinks.

And with AFRICOM we should keep in mind, as an article in HSToday reports:

… one of the Command’s fundamental roles is indeed counterterror intelligence and disruption operations.

As I wrote in an earlier post, based on a GAO Report, the US Africa Command is already active in the following countries, headquartered in the US embassy in these countries:
Algeria
Botswanana
Djibouti
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Liberia
Morocco
Nigeria
Senegal
South Africa
Tunisia
and continues working to add to the list.

Disruption operations are a serious concern. They have been part of the lead up to every coup sponsored or endorsed by the US government around the world. That has been true in Africa since independence. Disruption operations preceded the coup against Nkrumah, and many more since. US Military partnerships are training future coup leaders. You can see a list of US military interventions including coups in this previous post: War Is Peace – US Military Intervention.

The threats of violence show the counterterrorists to be the same as any terrorists, using the same threats, fear, and the possibility of violence to achieve their goals. The US military has already been complicit in manufacturing terrorist incidents in the Sahara to justify AFRICOM.

These threats should not be taken lightly, but they should be viewed with great skepticism. People should ask serious questions about their origins and motives.
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